


Something new, something better

by duraznero



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Lots of internal monologues, Post-Felina, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 21:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17087870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duraznero/pseuds/duraznero
Summary: Jesse erases something from his past and replaces it.





	Something new, something better

**Author's Note:**

> For our first Holiday Exchange in the BrBa Discord channel, my prompt was that "Jesse, post-series, gets a meaningful tattoo to to cover up some kind of nazi insignia on his body - maybe something to commemorate Andrea".  
> So, I delivered!
> 
> This work is dedicated to Lauren, I hope you like my gift for you and happy holidays!
> 
> This hasn't been beta-ed, so apologies for any grammar and spelling errors I didn't notice during my proof-reading.

Even though he had made the decision to do it just a few weeks after he arrived in Alaska, it wasn’t until 5 months later that Jesse finally decided to go to the tattoo parlor he had been eyeing whenever he drove to work and through a neighboring borough. During his first months, his flat had been located in the outskirts of Anchorage, and his landlord would have probably have asked a lot more questions about why a man who looked like he had walked through hell would immediately want to rent one of his places if it hadn’t been for the two grand which Jesse had given him in cash to pay for 20 measly square meters for the entire month. He had moved again three months ago, after having gained some foothold and getting a job at a woodwork shop, a bit more closer to the center but still far away from the busy parts of the city.

It was a Tuesday, a relatively quiet day, for which Jesse had decided was the perfect opportunity to actually go through with his plan. A bell rung when he opened the door and he took a look around the place. The room was warm compared to the cold March air outside and he instantly opened up his coat. Pictures of presumably the best works the tattoo artists had done hung on the wall, there were five chairs and behind the counter a young woman with a side-cut dyed in vibrant green and both fully tattooed sleeves in display looked up and over the rims of her horn-rimmed glasses. The name tag on her red tank top said ‘Evelyn’.

“Yo.” Jesse greeted her and walked over to her, “I was wondering how much cover-ups cost at this place.”

 

At the beginning, he had considered moving to Juneau, Fairbanks or one of the smaller cities, but at his core, Jesse was someone who had to live in a big city - besides, it was the town with the warmest temperatures during the year, as a New Mexico native he couldn’t survive in the cold. And it was much easier to disappear here than in a village of five thousand people, where everyone knew each other, and to remain anonymous was his biggest priority. He knew that if the DEA got a trail on him, it’d be over and they’d probably put the blame on him for Schrader’s death now that Mr White was dead, leading to him spending the rest of his life in prison if he wasn’t killed on his first week of incarceration by vengeful inmates who had connections to Welker’s gang. 

Both the thought of Mr White and the Nazi gang made his head spin with rage and nausea. At the beginning of his imprisonment, he had lied awake for hours, wondering why Mr White had not simply allowed them to shoot him in the head, ending his life once and for all. That way, he didn’t have to continue with his miserable excuse of a life, he had thought back then and in a way he still thought that if he had just died back then, Brock would still have a mother.  
But he didn’t end up with a bullet in the back of his head, instead he was thrown into a cage and cooked meth for a bunch of sadistic Nazis. Death would have been far more favorable, and Mr White must have known that because Mr White, evil genius that he had been, knew everything.  
Jesse had spent many nights awake thinking about him, he still did. He had long ago decided that as grateful as he was for being freed from imprisonment, the sum of everything Mr White had done tipped the scales and that the man was beyond deserving forgiveness.

 

“Hm, depends how big what you wanna cover is and also where it is.” Evelyn spoke with a broad accent, different than the one most people here had, perhaps midwestern.

“Uh.” Jesse bit his lip. “On the right side of my ribcage. And maybe as big as my palm?” He suddenly felt blood rush into his face and a desire to turn away on the heel and walk out again.

Evelyn scrunched her nose, and for a second Jesse was sure she was gonna deny him, but she made a vague gesture and said: “It’s a tricky spot and pretty big, but not impossible.”

“Oh, okay, great.”

“For when?”

“Uhm. I thought we could do it now? Unless I have to make an ‘appointment’ or you aren’t free right now, y’know.”

Her eyes widened and she raised both pierced eyebrows. “Oh. Well, technically we could; we’re not busy and there’s only one customer in the back. Are you sure about doing it right now though?” She regarded him skeptically, but Jesse had made this decision and he wasn’t going to start questioning it now.

“Yeah, more than sure.”

“Is it a simple cover-up or do you want the full program; lightening of the ink over several sessions and then a new tattoo?”

“I’d prefer the simple cover-up. I want it done as quickly as possible.” He didn’t want to have anymore reminder of those days, and least of all on his very skin.

“Alright, we can make that work.”

 

Todd had been a smart son of a bitch. Until the end, he had always portrayed himself as Jesse’s friend, someone who had to do what he had to do but to who this whole issue wasn’t personal. Me forcing you to make meth so I can impress Lydia Rodarte-Quayle under the threat of killing your loved ones isn’t personal, Jesse. I can’t do anything but just let my nazi uncle’s nazi friends torture you whenever they got nothing better to do, Jesse, my hands are tied together. Please don’t take it personal that I shot your girlfriend in the head right in front of you, Jesse, I had to do it because otherwise you would have tried to escape again.  
Out of all the nazi bastards, Todd had been the most despicable, the most dangerous, because he legitimately thought he was being your friend while slowly killing you.

It was no surprise that he did nothing when Kenny had the idea to give Jesse a lasting punishment for daring to try to escape, as if Andrea’s death wasn’t more than enough. No, they still held him down when one of the gang members - Jesse didn’t remember their names well, at some point they all blurred together into one single devious entity - who was responsible for making the initiation tattoos or something, thought about which symbol to tattoo on his skin.  
This was the reason why he had hesitated for so long with taking this step, because he feared that the moment he felt the needle pierce his skin, he would instantly be reminded of Kenny holding him down while his friend had started his work, and Jesse had tried to wring himself free from them, but it had been five grown muscular men holding him down, one on each limb and Kenny on his torso, and he had screamed, screamed, screamed, for himself and for Andrea, until the pain had stopped and there was nothing but laughter surrounding him, voices that called him things, voices that called Andrea things, and it was then when Jesse had learned to drown them all out, to turn himself inward and to be alone with his thoughts, his pain, his sorrow and his mourning. 

Todd had been smart, and the Nazis had been cruel, but at the end of the day, he was the one who was free and alive, and they were either shot to death by vengeful, brilliant, evil Mr White, or strangled to death at his own hands. He had won, and they had no power over him anymore.

 

The expression in Evelyn’s eyes was exactly what he had expected, and even thought he wasn’t surprised at it, he still felt more than uncomfortable in his skin. For a moment it looked as if she was torn between telling him to get the fuck out of her tattoo parlor, and to ask him why he had it, but perhaps it was the policy of the store to not ask customers specific questions, so she bit her lip and nodded without saying a word. 

“Here’s what I want as a cover-up.” Jesse said firmly, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible and hoping he’d never see her again. If he ever decided to get another tattoo, he’d do it in literally any parlor but this one. He handed her a piece of paper showing something Jesse himself drew, he had spent weeks perfectioning it and he couldn’t be prouder of the end product. Ever since he thought of how to get rid of what had been inked onto him, he knew it would be a dedication to Andrea. She deserved this gesture and so much more, more than Jesse could have ever given her, but it was the only thing he had to spare.

Evelyn’s lips twitched and for a moment there was a mocking smile on her face when she looked at the paper Jesse gave her with the illustration. He couldn’t care less and also not blame her for her reaction. God knows what impression he gave off, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was that the symbol drawn into his skin was soon to be a thing of the past.  
He shut his eyes close when she started the machine, took a deep breath and prepared himself mentally for what was about to happen. 

 

Whenever he laid at the bottom of the cage in the night and couldn’t sleep - and that happened on most nights - he thought of Andrea. During the first weeks, when he closed his weary eyes, he would hear the damned gunshot, see Andrea’s limp body collapse, hear his own screams and feel how they tore at his vocal chords again, and even though it happened only in his head, it felt just as real and palpable as if he was there every single time.  
The pain and grief of Andrea’s loss gnawed on him like a vulture on a fresh carcass, a wound that tore open every time it started healing for even just a little. The thought of never seeing her again was unbearable to him and Jesse still didn’t know how he hadn’t simply willed himself to die in the cage so many months ago. He wouldn’t have cared if he had attempted another escape and Welker simply shot him, yet he never tried again, because it wasn’t his life he worried about but Brock’s. He had already been responsible for his mother’s death, acting out of place again meant he would be next, Todd had said and Jesse knew by then that it was a promise. 

It had been stupid of him back then to truly believe he could ever have something close to a family with them, that someone like him was able to fit into their world. But he had tried nevertheless, and loved every second of the illusion that had felt so good and addictive that he never wanted to let it go. It had been his selfishness that had endangered them, even before Todd, back when Mr White had decided make his final move in his vendetta against Gus Fring and made the one move that was guaranteed to keep Jesse on his side.  
He often wondered how Brock was doing now. Back in his first weeks of freedom, the temptation to dial the number of Andrea’s mother, to ask for Brock while pretending to be someone else, was greater than even the need to eat, but at the same time his paranoia kept him from it. They might still be looking for him, and once they started, they would find him. The DEA were like piranhas in that aspect, if they even smelled a drop of blood, they would eat him until there wasn’t a single shred of flesh left; only blank and bare bones. And was it worth it? Jesse didn’t think so, and the number he knew by heart was never dialed by him.

 

The first sting of the needle made him flinch, and Evelyn let out a hiss. 

“Sorry!”, he immediately apologized, and forced himself to remain calm. The cover-up would take some time, he knew that, and twitching around wouldn’t do it any good, he could even seriously screw up Evelyn’s work, and if that were to happen, he might not be able to forgive himself for it. 

He closed his eyes shut again and inhaled through his nose.   
He thought of Andrea, of her dark hair framing her face and how it curled on her shoulders and how it did so differently, depending on whether she used the blow-dryer after a shower or not. Of her brown skin and how it glowed when she had sat in the New Mexico sun while she watched Brock play in the garden, a hand laid on her chin as if she was in deep thought and a smile on her face whenever her son turned around to her to watch her watch him. Of her lips, soft and always with a very distinct taste of peach chapstick, how she pressed kisses to Brock’s forehead, onto Jesse’s cheeks and laughed when the stubbles scratched her. Her laugh, sometimes light and gentle like a bell ring and sometimes hearty and loud, the latter mostly whenever she was about to beat Jesse in a round of Mario Kart. Her talking of her dreams and wishes when they would lie on the couch at night, Brock asleep in an easy chair, her head on his chest close to his heart and she would talk about what she wanted for herself, Brock, them - them as in including Jesse. Her general kindness and the goodness in her heart, because if there had ever been a truly good person he had ever met, it was Andrea.

The love he had for her, because he still had it and it would probably never fade away, burnt in his chest, but it wasn’t the kind of fire that ravaged within him and threatened to eat his flesh away, but the one that dulled any other kind of pain with its intensity. Jesse’s body muscles relaxed as he drifted off into his thoughts and memories, and soon enough the stings of the needle were completely secondary to him.


End file.
